'But leaving fables and guesses aside,' in Mr Freeman's words, 'we know enough of Hereward to make us earnestly long to know more' (p. 456). My proof that the English hero was a 'man' of the Abbot of Peterborough explains why 'Hereward and his gang', as they are termed in the Peterborough Chronicle, 'seem', Mr Freeman is forced to admit, 'to be specially the rebellious tenants of the Abbey', as distinct from the Danes and the outlaws (p. 459). And the vindication, on this point, of Hugh Candidus' accuracy makes one regret that Mr Freeman, though eager for information as to Hereward, ignored so completely that writer's narrative. It is in absolute agreement with the Peterborough Chronicle, Mr Freeman's own authority, but records some interesting details which the Chronicle omits.[15] These place Hereward's conduct in a somewhat different light, and suggest that he may really have been loyal to the Abbey whose 'man' he was. His plea for bringing the Danes to Peterborough was that he honestly believed that they would overthrow the Normans, and that the treasures of the church would, therefore, be safer in their hands. He may perfectly well have been hostile to the Normans, and yet faithful to the Abbey so long as Brand held it; but the news that Turold and his knights were coming to make the Abbey a centre of Norman rule against him[16] would drive him to extreme courses. Professor Tout has made some use of Hugh, but says, strangely, that 'the stern rule of the new Abbot Turold drove into revolt the tenants', when his rule had not yet begun.
Again, there is now no doubt where Hereward ought 'to be quartered'. Two other places with which the Domesday survey connects him are Rippingale and, possibly, Laughton to the north of Bourne. Living thus on the edge of the fenland, he may well have been a leader among 'that English folk of the fenlands' who rose, says the Peterborough Chronicle, in the spring of 1070, to join the Danish fleet and throw off the Norman yoke. And the prospect of being ousted from his Peterborough lands by a follower of the new French abbot would have added a personal zest to his patriotic zeal.
Mr Freeman, followed by Professor Tout,[17] holds that the story in the false Ingulf is not to be wholly cast aside, as it may contain some genuine Crowland tradition;[18] but he has not accurately given that story. It might hastily be gathered, as it was by him, that it was Hereward's mother-in-law who 'very considerately takes the veil at the hands of Abbot Ulfcytel', whereas it was, according to the Gesta, his wife who did this. The Gesta version, he writes, 'of Turfrida going into a monastery to make way for Ælfthryth is plainly another form of the story in Ingulf, which makes not herself but her mother do so'. But if the Historia Ingulphi (pp. 67-8) be read with care, it will be seen that 'mater Turfridæ' should clearly be 'mater Turfrida', the reading that the sense requires. So there is here no opposition, and Ingulf merely follows the Gesta version.
As for the honour of Bourne, it can be shown from the carta of Hugh Wac in 1166, from our list of knights, and from the Pipe-Roll of 1130, to have been formed from separate holdings and to have descended as follows:
The Psuedo-Ingulf's version runs:
It will be seen how skilfully the author of this famous forgery brings in the names of real people while confusing their connection and their dates. Richard de Rullos, for instance, was living shortly before 1130, yet is here described as living under the Conqueror, though represented as marrying the great granddaughter of a man who was himself in the prime of life in 1062. The whole account of him as an ardent agriculturist, devoted to the improvement of live-stock and the reclamation of waste, is quaintly anachronistic; but the fact of his being a friend and benefactor to Crowland is one for which the writer had probably some ground. For my part, I attach most importance to his incidental statement that the daring deeds of Hereward the outlaw, 'adhuc in triviis canuntur', an allusion, perhaps unnoticed, to a ballad history surviving, it may be, so late as the days when the forgery was compiled.